The Perot Museum of Nature and Science opens its doors Saturday morning, not to just a new building, but — what is less common — to a major new regional institution.

“When you open something like this, usually you have an older building that you’re replacing, or adding on to. It’s pretty rare when you build a new one from scratch,” said Forrest Hoglund, who raised $185 million in private funds for the museum. “We’re a new concept, a new building, a new institution, a new everything.”

There has been a flurry of new science museums in the past several years, but most are far smaller and more specialized than the Perot Museum. The nation’s major science museums, such as those in Boston, New York and Chicago, more typically date back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

“That was the golden age of exploration, that was the era of Darwin,” said Marjorie Schwarzer, visiting scholar at the University of San Francisco’s museum study program. “There is some historical precedence for what’s being done in Dallas, but it’s pretty unusual.”

Though its roots go back 80 years, the venture that became the Perot Museum was born only six years ago with the merger of three smaller facilities: the Dallas Children’s Museum, The Science Place and the Dallas Natural History Museum.

Leaders of the new institution knew they wanted to create something that was much bigger than the sum of those parts.

The situation presented both opportunities and challenges.

With no track record for the new museum, Hoglund took potential donors to the popular Houston Museum of Natural Science to show them what he had in mind for Dallas.

Nicole Small, the Perot Museum’s CEO, said the ability to start with a virtually blank slate was liberating.

“We took the best things from our existing institutions and yet we could think of this as a green field project,” she said. “It allowed us to think big and think bold.”

Carl Hamm, deputy director of the Saint Louis Art Museum, said Dallas organizers had a freer hand than most administrators in creating their museum.

“Few nonprofits are able to say, ‘If we’re going to create a new entity the right way, how do we do it?’” said Hamm, who has worked in museums in Fort Worth and Dallas. “They’ve got this wonderful opportunity to start fresh, but with the rich tradition of support of three institutions.”

The fossil bones and stuffed mammals were moved from the older facilities in Fair Park to be incorporated into the new collections. But organizers created entirely new exhibits and wired them with cutting-edge technology.

What is unusual, Hamm said, is to open a new museum on such a large scale, and with such a striking design. The museum’s founders hired internationally renowned architect Thom Mayne to create the building.

“By bringing in such a prominent architect, you’re not just bringing a functional museum into existence but creating a significant architectural addition to the city,” Hamm said.

The opening of the Perot Museum has had supporters of the Dallas central business district wondering if it will be a key player in their long, and often frustrating, efforts at revival.

The Perot opening follows the decade-long boom in Uptown, the opening of the AT&T Performing Arts Center three years ago, the unexpectedly strong popularity of the new Klyde Warren Park and the announcement this week that the Dallas Museum of Art will soon offer free admission and membership.

The hope is that such efforts will attract a continuing flow of people. Under that scenario, downtown would finally be approaching a critical mass, in which private enterprise will take over from nonprofits and government the task of developing the area.

The new museum is being watched by more than local eyes.

“This is a grand experiment, not just for Dallas, but nationally,” Hamm said.

“This could be an inspiration for other museums in other communities,” Schwarzer said. “It’ll be a model that I’m sure will be studied.”

Already, she said, the reviews have been good.

“There’s been a lot of buzz by museum people nationally,” Schwarzer said. “Usually, when the new kid on the block comes along, the museum educators on listservs are ready to pick it apart. That’s just what we do.

“But they’re raving about it.”

AT A GLANCE: New science centers

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science joins other science centers that have opened in recent years. Most, however, are much smaller or more specialized, and many are new facilities for existing institutions. For example, the Exploratorium in San Francisco is moving in April from its current home near the Palace of Fine Arts to a bigger location on Pier 15/17. Other new science centers:

•The Museum of Mathematics in New York City is scheduled to open Dec. 15.

•Peoria Riverfront Museum in Illinois opened in October.

•Flint Hills Discovery Center in Manhattan, Kan., opened in April.

•Infinity Science Center at NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi opened in April.

•Fort Collins Museum of Discovery in Colorado opened last month.

•Natural History Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City opened in November 2011.

•Telus Spark in Calgary, Alberta, opened in October 2011.

SOURCE: Association of Science-Technology Centers

IF YOU GO: Hours, admission and more

Museum hours

Opening weekend:

•10 a.m. to midnight Saturday

•9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday

Regular hours:

•10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday

•Noon to 5 p.m. Sundays

Admission

General admission to exhibit halls:

•$15 for adults (18-64)

•$12 for students (12-17) and seniors (65+)

•$10 for children (2-11)

•Free for children under 2 and for museum members

Advance purchase: Tickets can be purchased online; visitors must print them out and present them for entry into the exhibit halls. The museum uses a timed-ticketed reservation system to prevent overcapacity crowds. If you miss your assigned time to get into the museum, you might have to wait in line.

Member tickets: While admission is free for members, they must have tickets to get in and are encouraged to make reservations online to avoid lines.

Film admission to the Hoglund Foundation Theater:

•$8 for adults, students, seniors and children

•$6 for museum members

•$5 for 20-minute shows for all age groups

Combo admission to exhibit halls and theater:

•$20 for adults (18-64)

•$17 for students (12-17) and seniors (65+)

•$15 for children (2-11)

How to get there

The museum is at 2201 N. Field St. at Woodall Rodgers Freeway.

DART buses: Take the bus to the West Transfer Center in downtown Dallas and walk north on Griffin Street to the intersection of Field Street and Woodall Rodgers.

DART trains: The Red, Blue, Green and Orange lines stop at the Akard and West End stations. The Green and Orange lines stop at Victory Station. Each station is about a 10-minute walk from the museum.

Trinity Railway Express: Take the Trinity Railway Express from Irving, Arlington and as far west as Fort Worth. Get off at Victory Station for a 10-minute walk to the museum. The train does not run on Sundays. For a schedule, go to trinityrailwayexpress.org.

Driving: The museum is at Field Street at Woodall Rodgers Freeway, which runs through downtown Dallas between Interstate 35E and North Central Expressway. Take any exit off Woodall Rodgers and take the westbound frontage road to Field Street.

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